General

Pinyon Jay: Small, crestless, stocky jay with blue-gray body. Head is darker blue and has pale streaks on throat. Tail is short. Sexes are similar. Juvenile is duller.

Range and Habitat

Pinyon Jay: Resident from central Oregon and Montana southward to central Arizona, New Mexico, and extreme northwestern Oklahoma. Preferred habitats include ponderosa pines, pinyon-junipers, and forests of mixed pine and oaks.

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"crauk-crauk", "kaa-eh"

Interesting Facts

 Pinyon Jays store seeds in the fall to eat in the winter and early spring. They have a very good memory and can hidden seeds even under cover of snow. Mated pairs appear to coordinate their food caching so that their cache locations are known to each other.

 They live in large flocks that may number up to 500 and may spend their entire lives in the flock into which they are born.

 Their scientific name, Gymnorhinus, which means “bare nostrils”, refers to the fact that, unlike its close relatives, it does not have feathers at the base of its bill. This allows them to probe deep into pitch-covered pinecones to extract seeds without fouling the feathers that cover the nostrils of other jays.

 A group of jays has many collective nouns, including a "band", "cast", "party", and "scold" of jays.

Author

Gary Owen Dick